The John Horgan Dam, formerly known as Site C, stands as the most expensive engineering project in British Columbia’s history. Its sheer size helps explain why it has remained such a major political issue, with the structure stretching more than a kilometre along its crest and dominating debate far beyond the construction site itself.
What makes the project especially notable is not only its scale, but the dramatic shift in how the governing NDP has approached it. A dam once criticized in harsh terms has become one the party now supports, marking one of the more striking reversals in recent provincial politics.
That change reflects how major infrastructure projects can reshape political positions over time. As construction advanced and the dam became more than a proposal on paper, the discussion appears to have moved from whether it should exist to how governments would manage and defend it.
The result is that the John Horgan Dam now represents two stories at once in British Columbia: a massive public works project and a symbol of political recalculation. Its physical scale is immense, but so is the change in stance it has prompted from the party in power.
